Washington AHGP

Welcome,to Washington American History and
Genealogy Project. We are looking for new members to help
rebuild the state and and new County Coordinators. If you are
interested in learning more about AHGP, please read our
About
Page it also provides the requirements for becoming a
State or County Coordinator.

The history of Washington includes thousands of years of Native
American history before Europeans and Americans arrived and
began to establish territorial claims. The region was part of
Oregon Territory from 1848 to 1853, after which it was separated
from Oregon and established as Washington Territory.

The Territory of Washington was an
organized incorporated territory of the United States that
existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the
territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington.
It was created from the portion of the Oregon Territory north of
the lower Columbia River and north of the 46th parallel east of
the Columbia. At its largest extent, it also included the
entirety of modern Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming,
before attaining its final boundaries in 1863. In 1889,
Washington became the 42nd state of the United States.

The first European record of a
landing on the Washington coast was in 1774 by Spaniard Juan Pérez.
One year later, Spanish Captain Don Bruno de Heceta on board the
Santiago, part of a two-ship flotilla with the Sonora, landed
near the mouth of the Quinault River and claimed the coastal
lands up to the Russian possessions in the north.

In 1778, the British explorer Captain
James Cook sighted Cape Flattery, at the entrance to the Strait
of Juan de Fuca. But the strait itself was not found until
Charles William Barkley, captain of the Imperial Eagle, sighted
it in 1787. Barkley named it for Juan de Fuca. The
Spanish-British Nootka Conventions of the 1790s ended Spanish
exclusivity and opened the Northwest Coast to explorers and
traders from other nations, most notably Britain, Russia, and
the fledgling United States. Further explorations of the straits
were performed by Spanish explorers Manuel Quimper in 1790 and
Francisco de Eliza in 1791 and then by British Captain George
Vancouver in 1792. Captain Vancouver claimed the sound for
Britain and named the waters south of the Tacoma Narrows Puget's
Sound, in honor of Peter Puget, then a lieutenant accompanying
him on the Vancouver Expedition. The name later came to be used
for the waters north of Tacoma Narrows as well. Vancouver and
his expedition mapped the coast of Washington from 1792 to 1794.